{"id":766,"date":"2009-07-23T16:45:48","date_gmt":"2009-07-23T15:45:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/?p=766"},"modified":"2009-07-23T16:45:48","modified_gmt":"2009-07-23T15:45:48","slug":"frances-dixon-ends-year-one-at-medical-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2009\/07\/23\/frances-dixon-ends-year-one-at-medical-school\/","title":{"rendered":"Frances Dixon ends year one at medical school"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" style=\"float: left\" src=\"http:\/\/www.bmj.com\/columns\/icons\/frances_dixon.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"160\" height=\"110\" \/> So, one year of medical school finished, just five more to go. What have I learnt this year? As well as a load of useful medical things, and how to do my own washing and cooking, I have learnt some things they don\u2019t tell you about in the prospectus\u2026<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>That it is entirely possible to be a little bit disgusted and fascinated at the same time (thank you, anatomy class)\u2026,<\/li>\n<li>\u2026but that doesn\u2019t mean most people want to hear all about it during dinner (sorry, mum),<\/li>\n<li>Cramming an entire year\u2019s worth of work into five days of exams is both possible, and seen as the best course of action by the exam board &#8211; obviously,<\/li>\n<li>The general public is eager to help medical students in any way, whether it is being a simulated patient, or giving us money during RAG week,<\/li>\n<li>Lots of lovely new words like dyspnoea, amenorrhoea, haematuria and steatorrhoea,<\/li>\n<li>How to spell diarrhoea (finally).<\/li>\n<li>That the more diseases we learn about, the more of a hypochondriac I become.<\/li>\n<li>That the first question everyone asks when they find out you are studying medicine is, &#8220;Do you know what you want to specialise in?&#8221; For the record, no I don\u2019t!<\/li>\n<li>Scrubs are excellent outerwear for snowball fights.<\/li>\n<li>Medical students can be kind of cliquey, but as long as I\u2019m in the clique I don\u2019t mind.<\/li>\n<li>That it is probably a good thing that the medics\u2019 bar is next door to the A&amp;E department.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Most of all I have learnt that medical school is definitely where I belong (well I passed my exams, at least), and I can\u2019t wait for the next 5 years.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Frances Dixon<\/strong> is a medical student at Imperial College School of Medicine, London.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So, one year of medical school finished, just five more to go. What have I learnt this year? As well as a load of useful medical things, and how to [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2009\/07\/23\/frances-dixon-ends-year-one-at-medical-school\/\">More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[224],"tags":[1322,598,14753],"class_list":["post-766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-students","tag-frances-dixon","tag-medical-school","tag-students"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Frances Dixon ends year one at medical school - The BMJ<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2009\/07\/23\/frances-dixon-ends-year-one-at-medical-school\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Frances Dixon ends year one at medical school - The BMJ\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"So, one year of medical school finished, just five more to go. 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